Jason Kirksey, Richard Engstrom and Edward Still"The time has come to contemplate more innovative means of ensuring
minority representation in democratic institutions," observed the
federal district court that invalidated Georgia's majority-black 11th
Congressional District in August 1994. That decision followed in the
wake of Shaw v. Reno, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that
majority minority districts that are "extremely irregular" in
appearance will be strictly scrutinized to determine whether they are
racial gerrymanders.

While the full impact of the courts' elevated concern for appearances
is not yet known, the decisions highlight the need to look beyond
geographically-based districts as the method by which to elect
representatives. Single-member districts with winner-take-all plurality
or majority rules are not the only democratic method by which
representatives can be elected. Indeed, most of the world's democracies
have eschewed that type of arrangement.

Other types of democratic electoral systems can provide comparable or
even better electoral opportunities for minority groups, especially
when a group's voters are somewhat dispersed residentially.

The dilution of the voting strength of a politically cohesive minority
group should not be tolerated simply because the group's voters cannot
form the majority in an election district that is nicely shaped. The
dilution of such a group's vote is a choice, not an inevitability. A
variety of democratic election systems that do not depend on
residential patterns can provide cohesive groups with an opportunity to
elect candidates of their choice.

These systems are not limited to the much maligned (at least in this
country) party list proportional representation arrangements, nor are
they systems that in any way guarantee particular election results.
They are, to the contrary, election systems that provide nothing more
than opportunities to elect candidates of choice, all within the
fundamental "one person, one vote" rule of American democracy.

Cumulative Voting

One such election system is cumulative voting. A cumulative voting
system can be employed with or without geographical districts. When
used in conjunction with districts, however, the districts do not need
to be majority minority in order to provide electoral opportunities to
minority groups, even those whose voters may be dispersed. There is no
need, therefore, to manipulate district lines for that purpose.

The critical feature of the districts in a cumulative voting system is
that they be multi-member -- i.e., more than a single representative
must be elected from them. Under the cumulative system, the larger the
number of representatives to be elected in a district at any one time,
the smaller the proportion of the district's voters the minority group
can comprise and still have an opportunity to elect a candidate of its
choice.

Cumulative voting allows voters in a multi-seat, multi-vote election to
cast more than a single vote for any particular candidate of their
choice. It offers voters with an intense preference for a particular
candidate or candidates an opportunity to express that intensity
through their ballot. They can, in short, distinguish their level of
support among candidates through their votes.

In a three-seat, three-vote election, for example, a voter may cast one
vote apiece for three different candidates, or cast two votes for one
candidate and one vote for another, or if the outcome they most desire
is that one particular candidate be elected, cast all three of their
votes for that candidate.

By providing voters with the option to cumulate their votes, voters who
prefer one candidate over all the others are no longer forced to either
"single-shot" vote-i.e, cast one vote for that candidate and withhold
all of their other votes-or cast their remaining votes for candidates
competing with their preferred choice. Rather than partially
disfranchise themselves, voters can "plump" all or some of their votes
on their most preferred candidate under this system. Winning candidates
are determined by a simple plurality rule; in the three-seat contest,
for example, the top three candidates win.

In a multi-seat election, whether at-large or by district, the
cumulative options provide a minority of voters an opportunity to
concentrate their support for a candidate or candidates more
effectively than they can under the more traditional voting rules used
in this country. This makes it much less likely that their votes will
be diluted by submerging them in those of the majority. In short, with
cumulative voting, minority group voters do not have to be made into
majorities of voters in order to elect a candidate or candidates of
their choice. The need to manipulate district lines, therefore, is
largely, if not completely, eliminated.

Agee was clearly the most preferred candidate among the African
American voters, and the ability to express the intensity of their
preference was critical to his electoral success.

The Chilton County Experience

Minority voters have elected candidates of choice using cumulative
voting on a number of occasions. Further illustration is provided by
the November 1992 election for the seven seats on the Chilton County
Commission in Alabama.

Chilton County adopted cumulative voting in 1988 as part of the
settlement of a vote dilution lawsuit brought against its previous
election system. According to the 1990 Census, African Americans
constitute only 9.9% of the county's voting age population. No African
American had been elected to the county commission this century until
the first cumulative voting election, held in 1988. That commissioner,
Bobby Agee, was reelected the second cumulative voting election in 1992.

An exit poll taken during the November 1992 general election in Chilton
County reveals that Agee's reelection was a function of African
American voters taking advantage of their option to cumulate votes on
his behalf. Given the small percentage of African Americans in the
county, the exit poll deliberately over-sampled African American
voters. A total of 702 voters, of whom 142 (20.3%) were African
American, reported how they cast their votes in this commission
election.

With the exception of Agee, the percentage of vote received by each of
the candidates in the poll was within two percentage points of the
percentage they received in the actual vote. Agee did better in the
poll than in the actual count; whereas he finished second among the
fourteen candidates in the actual vote, with 9.69% of the votes cast,
he finished first in the exit poll with 15.73%. This no doubt reflects
the over-sampling of African American voters. If the vote is adjusted
to reflect the over-sampling, Agee's percentage drops to 10.47%, very
close to his actual percentage.

Despite being one of the seven Democratic candidates in the general
election, Agee received very little support from the county's
non-African American voters. Among the non-African American voters in
the exit poll (97.0% of whom identified themselves as white), Agee
finished twelfth -- ahead of the only other African American candidate,
also a Democratic nominee, and one white Republican candidate. Only
13.4% of these voters cast even a single vote for Agee.

Agee was by far the choice of the African American voters, however. He
received a vote from 67.1% of the African Americans who reported their
vote in the exit poll, and 85.4% of these voters said they cast all
seven of their votes for him. On average Agee received 6.28 votes from
each of his African American supporters. (The other African American
candidate received at least one vote from 32.9% of the African American
voters, and 78.7% of these voters cast all seven of their votes for the
candidate.) Agee was clearly the most preferred candidate among the
African American voters, and the ability to express the intensity of
their preference was critical to his electoral success.

The Chilton County experience with cumulative voting is not unique.
African American voters in other settings have also been able to elect
candidates of their choice through this system, as have Hispanic and
Native American voters. As these experiences demonstrate, the
representation of politically cohesive minority groups do not have to
be dependent on where the group's voters happen to live.

A new shape threshold for election districts, if that is what Shaw
requires, should not be allowed to become a convenient excuse for
systematically diluting the votes of minority voters. If majority
minority districts that are sufficiently attractive to the courts
cannot be created, then other types of democratic election systems that
do not have dilutive consequences, like cumulative voting, should be
adopted.

Jason F. Kirksey is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political
Science at the University of New Orleans, where voting rights expert
Richard L. Engstrom is a research professor. Edward Still is a civil
rights attorney in Birmingham, Alabama. This article first appeared in
the Voting Rights Review of the Southern Regional Council, which can be
contacted at: 134 Peachtree Street, Suite 1900, Atlanta, GA 30303.

In Detroit, there have been three mayors in the past two years and the current one has come under scrutiny. Perhaps a system like instant runoff voting will help bring political stability to motor city.